6 Life Lessons Learned From Sharknado

Imagine you are an up and coming screenwriter named Thunder Levin (you are already awesome by name alone) with a few stellar titles under your belt such as Mutant Vampire Zombies From the Hood and AE: Apocalypse Earth, and you are approached by the Syfy channel to pen the script for a movie about a tornado filled with sharks. Your first thought, when told that the title of your new Magnum opus is Sharknado, is that it is a movie about sharks and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and you think that idea has some real selling power. But then you are told, "No, it's a shark tornado!"

How in the world would you approach such an amazing concept for a script? Should you try and take things seriously, play the whole thing up for laughs or use the most brilliant combination of poor acting, senseless dialogue, illogical plot points and completely unnecessary blood and violence? If you watched the most-hyped up Syfy television movie since Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, then you know Levin went for the latter.

Sharknado, which aired this past Thursday but will re-air this coming Thursday due to massive demand, broke Twitter records with a peak of 5,000 tweets per minute, and has been called one of the most absurd movies to hit the Syfy small screen. But I, for one, feel like after viewing the film (I am calling it a film) learned an immeasurable amount of knowledge that I can take with me for years to come.

6. Sharks only need about six inches to a foot of water to be able to swim
Right off the bat, the sharks find their way into the California bay, which is plausible. But rather than being stuck out in the deep end of the ocean, or even in say two or maybe three feet of water, the sharks literally swim right up to the sand. Beachgoers are just wading, ankle deep in the shore and are attacked by sharks that seem to have the power to swim without water. Who knew such a thing was possible?

5. The most massive hurricane may be on its way, but no one in California will really care
Hurricane David, the fake hurricane that is quickly flying through Mexico to the California shores, dominates the news in Sharknado. The newscasters are warning that the storm will ravage the beaches and hit land in no time. If this was a real city that took storms seriously as say New York and last year's Sandy or Houston and Ike, people would be going bonkers, boarding up their homes, getting out of Dodge, hunkering down and buying too many cans of beans, but not Californians. They are just chilling on the beach, driving down the 405 like it was any old day. Even seniors at the old age home are just chilling out in the pool. There is a freaking hurricane the size of Africa headed your way and you are rollerblading on the boardwalk? Cali-dudes are that laid back.

4. If a hurricane hits your pool it will flood your house through your windows, but the roads will be totally cool to drive in
Fin (Ian Ziering), the hero of Sharknado, takes his comrades up into the hills of Hollywood to save his ex-wife and daughter. The highways waver between completely flooded and then miraculously bone dry. (Maybe Houston needs to take some tips from Los Angeles' drainage system?) Regardless of the logistics of the water runoff, upon reaching the ex-wife's (Tara Reid) house, the shark-filled hurricane hits the family pool, which in turn explodes into the house. The bottom floor fills with water and sharks and the magnitude of the storm forces the liquid up the stairs. How amazing!

But even more shocking is the fact that the driveway leading up to the water-filled house is not just drivable but it is also desiccated. So glad I now know that when you are worried about flooding it is better to stay outside in the street than to climb to the highest point of your house.

You mean SyFy? They dropped the "c" along with the "i"s from SciFi. ScyFy sounds like Scylla and ... wait, when is SyFy going to do some movie about the horrors of the ancient world resurfacing in Malibu or South Beach or something? I can just see dudebro surfers nonchalantly riding the gnarly waves as Charybdis opens its gaping maw. I now expect royalties on this.